I wonder what people make of this news thread? Personally, I have some doubts here... why would Assad order such a thing, drawing worldwide condemnation, when is was virtually winning in the area anyway? What is there to be gained in drawing the US into the conflict one the opposing side?

Given that ISIS also had a chemical weapons facility (although basic) in the area, would it not be more likely that they used this as a last post defence?

I've seen claims that it's a false-flag operation to (further) discredit Assad. Not for the first time, either. Whether that's a result of astute observation or just a conspiracy theory, I really have no idea. There's no doubt that the media are awash with people recoiling in justified horror but that not a trace of doubt is expressed does make one wonder.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

why would Assad order such a thing, drawing worldwide condemnation, when is was virtually winning in the area anyway?

He seemed not use them even while in much more worse situations,why would he use them now?

If special status could be granted to many states in India based on backwardness, then it can also be granted to remnant A. P which was deliberately rendered backward due to malicious policy of divide and rule.After division,percapita income of Telangana is Rs 20,000 /-more than that of remnant A.P.

Syrians in Douma where alleged chemical weapons attack took place celebrate being liberated from Islamic jihadists by Syrian Army. Now we're going to help the Islamic jihadists win it back. Stupid madness.

Residents of Douma celebrated the liberation of their city by the Syrian Arab Army. The Army has reportedly established full control over the city of Douma, which was under control of the Jaish al-Islam militant group.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed hope that “common sense” will eventually prevail in the modern world, which is becoming “more chaotic.” The current international situation is very troubling, he added.

“The state of world affairs invokes nothing but concerns, the situation in the world is becoming more chaotic,” Putin said on Wednesday during a ceremony to welcome new ambassadors to Russia.

“Nevertheless, we still hope that common sense will eventually prevail and international relations will enter a constructive course, the entire world system will become more stable and predictable.”

Moscow will continue to advocate strengthening “global and regional” security, and will fully adhere to its “international responsibilities and develop cooperation with our partners on a constructive and respectful basis.

“We will pursue a positive, future-oriented agenda for the world; and work to ensure stable development, prosperity and the flourishing of mankind,” Putin said.

Putin’s statements came shortly after a new batch of threats from by his US counterpart. Earlier on Wednesday, Donald Trump warned Russia to “get ready” for “nice and new and ‘smart’” missiles targeting Syria. His tweet followed a promise by Moscow to intercept any incoming projectiles in Syria, and to hit the locations from which they were launched.

Peter Ford on BBC Radio Scotland (who obviously didn't get the memo on keeping him out) outing the 'monitors' of the alleged attacks. The interviewer tried for about ten seconds to talk him down but Fmr. Ambassador Peter Ford ploughed on and dropped several truth bombs. Fortunately it was live.

Lost in the hyper-politicized hullabaloo surrounding the Nunes Memorandum and the Steele Dossier was the striking statement by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that the U.S. has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people.

This assertion flies in the face of the White House (NSC) Memorandum which was rapidly produced and declassified to justify an American Tomahawk missile strike against the Shayrat airbase in Syria.

Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.

Mattis went on to acknowledge that “aid groups and others” had provided evidence and reports but stopped short of naming President Assad as the culprit.

There were casualties from organophosphate poisoning in both cases; that much is certain. But America has accused Assad of direct responsibility for Sarin attacks and even blamed Russia for culpability in the Khan Sheikhoun tragedy.

Now its own military boss has said on the record that we have no evidence to support this conclusion. In so doing, Mattis tacitly impugned the interventionists who were responsible for pushing the “Assad is guilty” narrative twice without sufficient supporting evidence, at least in the eyes of the Pentagon.

This dissonance between the White House and the Department of Defense is especially troubling when viewed against the chorus of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) experts who have been questioning the (Obama and Trump) White House narratives concerning chemical weapons in Syria since practically the moment these “Assad-ordered events” occurred.

These analysts have all focused on the technical aspects of the two attacks and found them not to be consistent with the use of nation-state quality Sarin munitions.

The 2013 Ghouta event, for example, employed home-made rockets of the type favored by insurgents. The White House Memorandum on Khan Sheikhoun seemed to rely heavily on testimony from the Syrian White Helmets who were filmed at the scene having contact with supposed Sarin-tainted casualties and not suffering any ill effects.

Likewise, these same actors were filmed wearing chemical weapons training suits around the supposed “point of impact” in Khan Sheikhoun, something which makes their testimony (and samples) highly suspect. A training suit offers no protection at all, and these people would all be dead if they had come into contact with real military-grade Sarin.

Chemical weapons are abhorrent and illegal, and no one knows this more than Carla Del Ponte. She, however, was unable to fulfill her U.N. Joint Investigative Mechanism mandate in Syria and withdrew in protest over the United States refusing to fully investigate allegations of chemical weapons use by “rebels” (jihadis) allied with the American effort to oust President Assad (including the use of Sarin by anti-Assad rebels).

The fact that U.N. investigators were in Syria when the chemical weapon event in Khan Sheikhoun occurred in April 2017 makes it highly dubious that Assad would have given the order to use Sarin at that time. Common sense suggests that Assad would have chosen any other time than that to use a banned weapon that he had agreed to destroy and never employ.

Furthermore, he would be placing at risk his patronage from Russia if they turned on him as a war criminal and withdrew their support for him.

Tactically, as a former soldier, it makes no sense to me that anyone would intentionally target civilians and children as the White Helmet reports suggest he did.

There is compelling analysis from Gareth Porter suggesting that phosphine could have been released by an airborne munition striking a chemical depot, since the clouds and casualties (while organophosphate-appearing in some respects) do not appear to be similar to MilSpec Sarin, particularly the high-test Russian bomb-carried Sarin which independent groups like “bellingcat” insist was deployed.

America’s credibility was damaged by Colin Powell at the United Nations in 2003 falsely accusing Saddam Hussein of having mobile anthrax laboratories. Fast forward to 2017 and we encounter Nikki Haley in an uncomfortably similar situation at the U.N. Security Council calling for action against yet another non-Western head-of-state based on weak, unsubstantiated evidence.

Now Secretary Mattis has added fuel to the WMD propaganda doubters’ fire by retroactively calling into question the rationale for an American cruise missile strike.

While in no way detracting from the horror of what took place against innocent civilians in Syria, it is time for America to stop shooting first and asking questions later.

Ian Wilkie is an international lawyer, U.S. Army veteran and former intelligence community contractor.

A chap who I think was Syrian gave a long interview on Sky News today. Understandably very distressed, he did seem to veer from a direct account of the current event. I began to wonder when he spoke of "thousands" gassed and cited both chlorine and Sarin among several gases used and I turned it off when he included Nigel Farage in the list of those to blame. Wires crossed or fake indignation?

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

I am glad that, finally you are seeing Trump through the same glasses which many others - including myself. A hollow & vain individual not worth including him in any civilized group - let alone lead it.

Otherwise, from what I have been reading and listening to reliable Israeli commentators, Assad did drop barrels filled with chlorine on those civilians.

Last edited by Hombre on Sat Apr 14, 2018 5:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hombre wrote:Otherwise, from what I have been reading and listening to reliable Israeli commentators, Assad did drop barrels filled with chlorine on those civilians.

There is no proof Assad did it Hombre. How much I love Israel, and stand behind them, I still want to be honest and fair to Assad and his people. Trump is ( perhaps ) going to attack Syrie to appease Israel.

“I believe there was a chemical attack. We’re looking for the actual evidence,” Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

Mattis referenced the OPCW mission to Syria and complained about the “challenges we face where Russia has six times in the U.N. rejected and made certain that we could not get investigators in.” He cautioned that even if inspectors confirmed chemical weapons were used in Douma, “we will not know who did it.”

Two U.S. officials told NBC News on Thursday afternoon that two different chemical weapons – chlorine gas and an unidentified nerve agent – were found in blood and urine samples from victims of Saturday’s suspected WMD attack in Syria.

Yet before my first quoted paragraph, which comes at the end of the story, comes this:

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is sending inspectors to Syria, but they are not scheduled to reach Douma until Saturday at the earliest.

So who collected and analysed these specimens? The latter has to be someome capable of detecting small amounts of nerve agents. "In American hands" it says - but who put them there? How did they get them out of Douma?Questions, questions and more questions. Not a good basis for going to war.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Moscow has “irrefutable” data that the incident in Douma, Syria was staged by the intelligence services of a foreign state pushing a “Russophobic campaign,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated.

“We have irrefutable evidence that it was another staging, and the special services of a state which is in the forefront of the Russophobic campaign had a hand in the staging,” Lavrov said at a news conference with his Dutch counterpart Stef Blok on Friday.

During their meeting in Moscow, both diplomats touched upon Syria, which has recently been threatened with new military strikes in the wake of an alleged chemical attack. Some Western leaders, including from the US and France, claim that the Syrian government is behind the alleged incident. It comes despite a team from the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), tasked with establishing the truth, only just arriving in the country.

Russia’s top diplomat warned against following the Libyan and Iraqi scenarios amid the intensifying bellicose rhetoric.

“God forbid something adventurous will be undertaken in Syria similar to the Libyan or Iraqi experience… I hope nobody dares to,” Lavrov told reporters.

Otherwise, a new wave of refugees will surge into Europe and in other directions, the foreign minister warned. However, this scenario does not bother those “who are protected by an ocean” and can rip apart the region for the sake of geopolitical interests, he said.

The situation regarding Syria has escalated over the past week, following Saturday’s reports on the alleged chemical attack in the town of Douma. Pro-militant sources, and the controversial White Helmets group in particular, claimed that the Syrian government used chlorine-filled munitions to strike the area, killing and injuring dozens of civilians. Moscow and Damascus have repeatedly dismissed the allegations. After inspecting the site of the alleged incident, Russian military specialists said there were no signs of chemical weapon use.

He said the attack was staged on April 7 to coincide with military action by Syrian government forces, after the rebel group Jaish al-Islam that long controlled Eastern Ghouta carried out shelling of Damascus from April 3 to 6.

Russia has repeatedly accused opposition fighters of staging or spreading rumors of chemical attacks, but the involvement of Britain is a new claim.

It comes as London has blamed Moscow for a nerve agent attack on a former double agent and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury last month.

In March Russia's General Staff said that rebels were planning a "provocation" in eastern Ghouta with women and children set to play victims of a chemical attack.

President Vladimir Putin later referred to this claim, saying on April 4 that Russia had "irrefutable proof" that rebels were planning an attack with "poisonous substances".

Putin's playing "you show me yours and I'll show you mine." Be it evidence or missiles.

‘Hindus and Muslims belong to two different religious philosophies, social customs and literary traditions. They neither intermarry nor eat together, and indeed they belong to two different civilisations which are based mainly on conflicting ideas and conceptions.’ Muhammad Ali Jinnah